Neighbours to meet on final day

Tom Gillespie, pictured here batting against Eastbourne last season, will be one of the players hoping to lead Hastings Priory back to the Sussex Premier League during the coming season

Published:12:25Wednesday 14 January 2015

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Hastings Priory and Crowhurst Park will go head-to-head in the final game of the 2015 cricket season.

The near neighbours will round-off the Sussex Cricket League Division Two campaign by facing each other at Horntye Park on Saturday September 5.

The reverse fixture at Park’s Walcott Ground in Telham - which will be the first ever league meeting between the clubs - will take place on Saturday July 4.

Trips to some unfamiliar places lie in wait for Priory having been relegated from the Premier League for the first time ever in 2014 despite reaching the quarter-finals of the ECB Royal London Club Championship.

The likes of Lindfield, Pagham, Ifield, Ansty and Findon will provide new opposition for Priory, who will begin the summer at home to Lindfield on Saturday May 9.

Priory’s first away game will be against Three Bridges - the team which came down with them - on May 16 and they will entertain Worthing the following weekend.

Park, who got to the last 16 of the national Davidstow Village Cup in 2014, will also begin their summer on home territory against Findon before travelling to Lindfield.

Their next two games are against two former Premier League clubs, Three Bridges at home and Worthing away. Park’s final home fixture of the term will be against Ansty on August 29.

In other Priory news, wicketkeeper/batsman Leo Cammish - who played for the club in 2013 and 2014 - has retained in his place in the Sussex Academy set-up for 2015 and left-arm spinner Dan Doram - who featured for Priory in the second half of last season - is among the newcomers.

Morne van Wyk, the club’s overseas player in 2000, has been playing for South Africa’s T20 team against the West Indies and Matt Machan, who won the Sussex Premier League with Priory in 2011, has been included in Scotland’s squad for the World Cup.